May – The Month of Development Success for the VCA

The month of May has been an incredibly outstanding month for the development programs of the Vanuatu Cricket Association (VCA) that contribute to identifying children with the potential to become exceptional cricketers.

The annual U19 school competition kicked off the month of May with students from Lycee Lab, Malapoa College, Onesua Presbyterian College, Ulei Junior Secondary School and Central School compete for a chance to be the U19 School champion and showcase their individual talents to be selected for an opportunity to train in the national U19s pre-squad.

The competition was played in round robin format with all teams playing each other twice and top two teams guaranteed a spot in the finals.

In the boys’ category, Malapoa College and Lycee Lab dominated the rounds and secured their spot in the final and Malapoa College also secured a spot in the girl’s category final along with Onesua.

Lycee won the toss in the boy’s final and elected to bat first and set 52 runs on the score board at the end of their 10 overs.

Malapoa College with a target of 54 runs to win chased down the score in the eighth over and defeated Lycee Lab by six wickets. Marlex Anthony from Malapoa College was awarded as the player of the match for his great performance with the ball.

In the girls’ final, Onesua won the toss and elected to field which gave Malapoa the opportunity to score 84 runs after their inning. Onesua chased their target of 85 runs to win but fell short and were defeated by Malapoa College by 26 runs and Rachelle Tari was awarded as the player of the match.

After the U19 school competition the VCA development team, under the supervision of Natalie Hava, ran school holiday programs in six different communities namely Melemaat, Malapoa, Independence Park, Seaside, Korman and Teouma.

Hava said that she was impressed with the turnout of participants during the program which totalled up to 94 participants altogether.

“It is always great to see children so interested to participate in the programs that we run because it gives us hope that there will be a large selection of amazing cricketers in the future,” expressed Hava.

“The month of May has been exceptionally successful for our development programs and I am confident to say that we have identified a lot of talented children with great potential.”

The activities ran were all modified games of cricket that allowed children to have more fun but at the same time learn basic cricketing skills in batting, bowling and fielding.

Hava also confirmed that this holiday program will happen again during the next school holidays in August.